PhoneRadar

PhoneRadar Report – Episode 7

PhoneRadar Report – Episode 7

Welcome back for the Episode 7 of the PhoneRadar Report, your source for all things mobile.

News Report:

Indian Announcements:

This week, we saw the launch of Huawei’s two handsets in India, Honor 6 Plus the latest flagship and Honor 4X, its first budget phablet in the country. These devices are priced at INR 26,499 and INR 10,499. First talking about the Honor 6 Plus, it is the successor to the Honor 6, which was launched last year in the country. The USP of the device is its dual 8MP camera modules at the back, which is a specially design camera for the device using unique camera technology. The Honor 6 Plus comes with a 5.5 inch full HD display, HiSilicon Kirin 925 octa-core chipset and 3GB of RAM. Other notable specs include 16GB internal storage, a MicroSD card support for storage expansion, and the Emotion 3.0 UI layered over Android KitKat OS, which surely will be getting the Lollipop update later on. The availability date of the Honor 6 Plus is unknown yet.

Now talking about the second device, the Honor 4X, it is a budget phablet competing with the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G and Yu Yureka. The 4X retailing in India will pack a 5.5-inch 720p display and a Snapdragon 410 Chipset, which replaces the HiSilicon chipset on the Chinese unit. Looking at the trend of 64-bit powered processor, company made this decision. The notable features of the device include 2GB of RAM, 8GB internal storage, microSD card support, 13MP rear, and 5MP front cam. All this is powered by a 3000mAh battery. To purchase this device, you would have to register for the sale on Flipkart, happening on March 30th at 2PM.

Moving on with the launches in India, Samsung officially announced its latest flagship variants, the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge in the country at a Blog-A-thon event in New Delhi. We were present at the event and brought you some interesting stories from the event. The price of the S6 and S6 Edge starts at INR 49,900 and INR 58,900 respectively. Both the devices are similar in most specifications. They both pack a 5.1-inch Quad HD display, Exynos 7420 Octa-Core chipset, 3GB of RAM, options to choose internal storage, varying from 32GB to 128GB. Other notable features of these variants are 16MP rear camera with LED Flash, OIS, and real-time HDR while the 5MP front facing camera feature’s a special wide-angle lens for wide shots. Though, the only difference between these two devices are, that S6 Edge has a dual curved screen on both the side of the display. As well as they have different battery ratings, S6 has 2550mAh while S6 Edge has 2600mAh battery. These devices are going on sale starting April 10th, but you can pre-order them from Amazon India and Flipkart.

There are some launches that would be happening in the coming weeks, and we have received invites for them. First of them is the Lenovo’s latest 64-bit powered smartphone, the A7000, which is the successor to the A6000 launched earlier this year. The Indian pricing of the device is unknown yet, but with specs like 5.5-inch 720p display, True8Core MediaTek chipset, 2GB of RAM and 8GB internal storage anything around INR 10K would be a good price. The USP of the device according to the company is the Dolby Atmos technology, which offers a better media experience. The phone will also pack an 8MP rear camera with LED flash and 5MP front facing camera. All this would be powered by a 2900 mAh battery.

Another device that is going to launch in India in the coming week is the ASUS ZenFone 2. During its announcement at MWC this year, company got everyone excited about this device with the incredible specs at an aggressive pricing starting at $199. Asus India is all set to launch this device on April 13th. And we would be at the event covering about the device. The Zenfone 2 features a 5.5-inch 1080p display and 64-bit Intel processor. The RAM and Internal storage of the device would be different according to the variants. There would be a 2GB and 4GB variants of the device, as well as different processors from Intel. Both the variants will pack 13MP rear camera with dual LED flash and OIS while there would a 5MP front facing snapper for wide- angle selfies.

Talking about the international announcements this week, ZTE at a press conference in Beijing announced its two smartphones, Nubia Z9 Max and Z9 Mini. The devices are priced at 1499 Yuan and 2499 Yuan. These two come with different screen sizes, but packs Full HD resolution. Z9 Max comes with 5.5-inch display, Snapdragon 810 chipset, 3GB RAM, 16GB internal storage and microSD card slot. The device sports a 16MP rear cam and 8MP front cam. It would be running on Android Lollipop out of the box. All this is powered by a 2900mAh battery.

The second device launched by ZTE is the Z9 mini, which packs a 5-inch display, Snapdragon 615 chipset, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, and microSD card. It packs the same 16MP rear cam and 8MP front cam that is available on Z9 Max. As well as the same 2900mAh battery.

Video of the Week:

This week at the launch event of Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, we got to test how durable and scratch proof these two devices are. Company has been touting the use of the latest and strongest Gorilla Glass 4 on their new flagships. We dropped the S6 from pretty good height and scratched the S6 Edge display. And to know what happened next you would have to check out the full video of the drop test on S6 and Scratch test on the S6 Edge.